01/31/15

HICKORY
RADIO RELAY SITE, HILL 950, LOOKING DOWN ON THE OLD KHE SAHN COMBAT BASE
, 1971, BEST PICTURE OF THE SITE. Photo furnished by Mike E Sloniker
mike.e.sloniker@lmco.com

Col
Robert (Bob) Howard, Congressional Medal of Honor with Sgt Daniel
L. Lindblom, Team New Hampshire 11, with the CAR-15 on his right. Photo
taken by John St. Martin, and yes we are both very much alive. 7/20/2009
daniel.lindblom@comcast.net

Aside from a few firebases, most places we went over the fence were holes
in the tree's. I had no foresight and did not keep a journal during my tour,
just a few notes on the back of a some photo's. Being a gunner we got very
little briefing and a lot of extractions were totally unplanned anyway.
Maybe some of the team members might notice the landmarks. Places like LZ
Duc Co or Plei Nong, where we staged a lot, should be well known to the
FOB-II guys. We turned in tags and wallets, but often brought our camera's
by mistake. -By
Ray Hoagland, 189th Assault Helo Co "Ghost Riders"

Left is Fred Zabitosky who needs no further introduction (See
Fred's CMH's Citation), Middle is
Captain
Warren "Bud" Williams), and Right is Bob Boyles who was killed less
than a week after this picture was taken at Dak To just after our team was extracted from Target Area INDIA-9,
via McGuire Rig, following a typical Op-35 drama over in Laos. Photo furnished
by Bud Williams (Dr. Warren W. Williams). Note: Bud continued to
keep in contact with Fred until Fred passed away

A
group photo of the special operation OPERATION THUNDERCLOUD team - one
of the few photos available of these very brave young men. This was a
highly classified special op and I was the first CO-Photo furnished by
Bud William. TO VIEW MORE PICTURES OF THUNDERCLOUD AND STORY CLICK-->THUNDERCLOUD

This photo was taken at FOB 2 and the SOG
soldiers are Ed Wolcoff and Doug "Frank" Miller. Frank
Miller is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, see FRANK
MILLER {Please note the dedicated webpage to Frank Miller was
done by KIET VAN NGUYEN, the only Vietnamese Navy Cross recipient,
who was on the BAT 21 Rescue mission with Thomas R. Norris and
awarded the CMOH)}

MOST
OF CCN'S RECON COMPANY PHOTOGRAPH, 1971-72 TIMEFRAME-Submitted
by Leroy Sena (He is the one looking at the dog on the right
side of the picture look like he has his eyes closed

A
view of the Combat Base taken from the top of Hill 950. The river valley and
parts of the river can be seen in the middle of the photo. Credit Khe Sanh
Veterans Websitetaken in 1968 by Bob Donoghue and featured in John
Plaster's book SOG A Photo of the Secret Wars,
P 410

Marble Mountain-CCN by Larry Greene

HML 367th Marine AH-1G gunships returning from a mission,
flying over Marble Mountain with SOG's Command and Control North's (CCN) and the
North Vietnamese Prisoner of War Camp in view. Copyright by Mark Austin Byrd.

A
two Slick Laos pig hunting trip that probably required a
fictionalized After Action report. Being assigned to SOG meant
doing whatever they wanted without having to take any of the heat.
1969 is all that I know about this one. You probably can't see the
beer cans, but this was a moral booster. Aside from having one of
those rare good times, I think they also knew the Indig's could
use the food. The idea of using two Army Slick's to hunt pigs
still cracks me up. By Ray Hoagland, 189th Assault Helo Co "Ghost
Riders"

The photo is of the "Merricans, by God" of 1st Exploitation Company,
CCS, circa fall '69 or early '70 when our CCS
Exploitation team returned from a mission to Co Roc in support of a CCN
operation. It has been so long I don’t remember all the names. This was the
mission Lt. McMurray was killed by the KingBee chopper that crashed. I
was the Sgt in the chopper when it crashed. By: Mike Moore

Photo
from CCN, April 1969. From left: me standing, Rick Estes, squatting,
and Lynne M. Black Jr. The photo was taken in Recon area of CCN, the
camera is facing north. By John "Tilt" Meyers

FOB
3 team. SSG Crone was killed at Khe Sahn in Jan 68. During the firefight with a superior enemy force, he was
captured and executed. He was subsequently intentionally decapitated by
the enemy and abandoned for discovery-(SSG Crone death was a calculated execution). Crone is on the left with the
cigarette hanging in his mouth, Billy W. Wood is on the right with the Khe Sahn TOC
antenna appearing to come out of his left shoulder. furnished by Dave Sebright Minuteman
17.dave@sebrightproducts.com

I have
some photo's, but as a door gunner I didn't get much more briefing
than " we're hopping the fence. " I have no notes on these photo's.
Due to the amount of Slick's involved, I would assume this was a
Hatchet Force out of CCC in 1968-69.

By
Ray Hoagland, 189th Assault Helo Co "Ghost Riders"

"Dairy Queen hits the beaches of Nha Trang at
the Special Forces HQ Compound. Ice cream, you scream ice cream before it
melts. Only open during Monsoons, 0 dark thirty till the rain stops". Ed
Yaroborugh

I believe it had soft-serve ice cream cones and various related
concoctions (sundaes, etc.). -Earl
McMillan,

The SFOB Dairy Queen was going strong in
the summer of 1969, out front of the enlisted club. The so called ice cream
was sour, or made from sour milk or something. - John Photo by Tom Leonard Photos.
See
Cartoon for
comments and the Dairy Queen Sign.

When I first went to the 5th SF
Group Compound in Nha Trang (1965), we had NO enlisted men’s club, top
three club, an Officers Club - or anything else to differentiate
between ranks. All personnel admitted, drank, ate and partied
together at a hooch turned into a club. The structure backed up to
the fence line was called the “Playboy Club.” I was there when Barry
Sadler was playing his “Ballad of the Green Beret” about a hundred
times per day. Its personnel fed me while I was recovering from my
wound in a hooch near the club. Once I got on crutches, I went there
by myself and ate. The club had every kind of beer sold in Asia –
usually a special on White Swan (?) from Australia. We could get it
from Australia on most Air Force flights rotating out of the country
for 1,000 hour maintenance. So, it was cheap. It had about 20 slot
machines around the walls and that turned a Hell of a profit for the
club. Once the Group Commander decided to allow a few auxiliary
personnel into the club, they added a screened area on one side of the
club and had live entertainment. This is on the Internet:
http://www.talesandwhalespublishing.com/excerptsMOM.htm. Julio Rodriguez of Warner Robins, Georgia
attended a show in the Fifth Special Forces Camp Play Boy Club at Nha
Trang Air Base in 1965. The show featured “The Old Lady of the
Boondocks,” another nickname given to Maggie, and her performance
brought hysterical laughter to the audience." Her antics on stage were
in the true sense of “above and beyond.” Few people would have had the
courage to put themselves in the position of self-humiliation, but she
did it just to make us laugh!" After the show Ms. Raye was signing
autographs. I only had a Military Pay Certificate for paper, but she
signed her name on a five-cent note, which years later I would lose. I
no longer have her signature, but she and her show are locked away in
my memories. "For a short time, she allowed me to escape the lousiness
of war and drowned me in laughter. I had a newborn son whom I had
never seen and thought that I possibly might never see. Colonel Maggie
was the only ‘sane’ person over there, and she brought us all the
sanity of laughter in an otherwise insane situation. "A few days
later, the club was the target of rockets and mortars and, though it
was destroyed, Colonel Maggie and her memories live on. "She touched
many lives, and I am thankful that she touched mine. I have only one
regret...losing my Military Pay Certificate with her signature. She
was every serviceman’s link to the joy of life and laughter." I’m sure
there is much more but that is the gist. I don’t remember the club
ever being blown up. When I separated for OCONUS in January, 1967 the
rules had been changed. There was an Officers Club, and an NCO Club
both down the street near the Mess Hall. You had to be operational in
Special Forces to go to the Playboy Club..Check
with some other old timers who might remember. Send along this
draft.

Posted Sep 22, 07 from Marine Corps Times: Maj. Gen.
Samuel Helland, has been nominated to take command of I MEF and MarCent and to
receive a third star. Helland, 59, is a helicopter pilot by training and is no
stranger to ground combat and unconventional warfare: A former Army Special
Forces operator, he saw combat in Vietnam with 5th Special Forces Group’s
Military Advisory Command (Special Operations Group. For more on Sam, click
Samuel Helland's
Bio

Aerial
of B-50 either departing or arriving. by

Chuck Neely Ammo Support

1970-71

Photo
#1: Blackbird: MC-130
nose view.

Spring of 1967, and I think it
is at either Kontum, or Hue Phu Bai. I am hoping one of you can
identify the location from the little shed with the name on it in the
background. Too bad I didn't get any close ups, but most of the
guys were camera shy. Submitted by: Richard (Dick) Sell

Remember the kids always ran to the roadside to watch
us ride by. I took this one while riding shotgun on an ammo hauler
running some ordnance down to Phan Rang We were working to provide
these kids a free world. The selfish and politicians stole it from
them. They'll do the same to Iraq if we let them. -

Chuck Neely Ammo Support

1970-71

SGT
Warner Farr, a 91Bravo who joined the CCS operation at Ba Kev Cambodia
in April 1970, and continued with RT Measure on the long-term operation
32KM West of the SVN border. The Photo - I am giving Rocky Farr (Doc) a
short class on the operation of an RPG-7, or RPG-2. Doc Farr, by the
way, is now an O-6, is the SOCOM Surgeon stationed at MacDill AFB in
SOCOM, and has been on active duty for 39 1/2 years. Will celerate his
40th year on Active Duty in the US Army, and Special Forces in April
2007. A fine man, is Rocky Farr. By SGM Billy Waugh

Billy
Waugh visiting the Grave of SFC Frank R. Noe. Billy would run through
Arlington National Cemetery and by the grave on his daily run. He
asked me one day if I was kin to Frank, I told him Frank was my brother.

Photo below depicts a young SSG, Warner (Rocky) Farr, a 91Bravo
medic, in the Ba Kev, Cambodia area, as I give him a couple of
pointers with the RPG-2 (the grandfather of the RPG-7) Rocky is still
on active duty, all 42 years of it, and is a COL, Dr., Pilot, and the
SOCOM Surgeon.

Hatchet
Force at Phu Bie (Jun/Jul 68). Photo of SFC John McGovern, SSG Emmett W.
"Boots" Porter, SGT Darrell E. Newburg, 1LT William R. Mansfield, and
SSG Richard L. Wilson. MSG Francis Manuel was with Cpt. Gebby's TDY
team from the 1st SFG. Boots Porter and I were in charge of another plt.
We were all out in A Shau Valley on top of a mountain. We had been in
the area a couple of weeks. I was told to go down a trail and link
up with a company from the 101st Abn. So Boots and I left to make the
link up and MSG Manuel took a patrol down the trail on the other side of
the mountain. When I got back, Cpt Gebby told me that MSG Manuel's point
man had tripped a mine and had blown his legs out from under him and MSG
Manuel was trying to get to him under fire. MSG Manuel raised up from
behind a log and a NVA shot him in the top of the head. We could not
land the Medavac chopper as there was not enough room so we had to lift
the dead and wounded up to the chopper to get them out. MSG Manuel was
due to go back to Okey (1st SFG) when we returned from the operation.
photo taken as soon as we got back in from that operation. MSG (Ret)
John C.McGovern